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Bits of Everything

Still No Bars – Cell Phone Towers Approved Slowly by APA

Here is a piece from the Adirondack Express that details the Adirondack Park Agency’s policy on cell phone towers and explains the ongoing situation with cell phone towers in the Adirondacks.

Skiers Going Down the Slope – Expected To Go Up

Here is also a good article about the upcoming ski season in NY state. It’s expected to be a good one.

Budget Woes Mean State is Buying Less Land

Here is a short article from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise about how the plan to acquire more property by the state in the Adirondacks is being impacted by the state’s budget crisis.

Lake Ice Looks Good for Winter Carnival.

Here is an article from the Post Star about how the ice on Lake George should be good and thick for the Ice Festival in Lake George Village in February.

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Nine Counties to Sue APA

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

Attention Property Owners.

This is a story which you should pay attention to.

The Adirondack Park Agency has revised its rules and regulations to apply to the expansion of shorefront homes built before the APA came into existence.

The APA has been traditionally criticized for overstepping its authority but nine counties within the park all clearly feel this is an abuse of the APA’s statutory powers. What the Agency is seeking to do is to apply their shorefront restrictions to those shorefront structures built before the APA even came into existence.

Thankfully, nine Adirondack counties are speaking out in unison against this. After watching the goings on at the APA for 25 years, if the APA is successful, all property owners should be concerned because they will be coming for your property next.

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Bits of Everything

Here are some links which I thought people would like to know about.

Here’s a story about the completion of a deal to protect 104,000 acres of Adirondack forest. That’s a lot of land.

While they may be acquiring acreage, here is an update on how the state is at the same time proposing to not pay their share of property taxes on their Adirondack land. This issue is bringing together groups from both ends of the political spectrum.

Finally, this is something the Huletts fire department may want to consider in the future. The Hague fire department just purchased a new fire/rescue boat to protect shoreline property and make lake rescues. Perhaps something to consider for Huletts someday?

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Even the State is Sick of Paying High Property Taxes.

North Country Public Radio has a short radio spot which came out about 10 days ago which highlights that:

“For the first time since the 1800s, the state of New York wants to cap property tax payments on forest preserve land in the Adirondack Park.”

This would be absolutely devastating to property owners in the Adirondacks. Right now the state pays property taxes to local towns and school districts based on the land they own in that town. This would effectively reduce their share, shifting the burden to private landowners.

Listen to it here. It’s only about 3.5 minutes.

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Cruella DeVille Would Be Happy

Remember the cries of Cruella DeVille to “kill the puppies, kill ALL the puppies” in 101 Dalmatians? Well Governor Paterson is killing all the pheasants and closing the Reynold’s Game farm by the end of the year.

The Reynolds Game Farm, is the last-of-its-kind New York game preserve where pheasants have been bred and released into the wild since the 1920’s. You won’t hear much about this in the mainstream press but this is the type of thing that makes upstate sportsmen really mad. The reason is that this preserve is funded by excise taxes collected on all firearm and ammunition purchases. Instead of releasing the birds into the wild in the Spring, they will be slaughtered and given away in the city and the Governor will claim credit for a free holiday bird. Sad but true.

Read about it here.

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A Great Gift Idea

Here is a book which would make a great Christmas gift. While I was researching my book, I was fortunate enough to meet one of the co-writers of this book doing research at the same time. In Stoddard’s Footstep: The Adirondacks Then and Now, photographer, Mark Bowie, faithfully returned to many of the exact locations where Seneca Ray Stoddard shot his historic Adirondack photographs in the 1880’s and took pictures of how the locations look today. It is an interesting photographic time capsule and album, looking at the same exact spots then and now.

Learn More Here

Update: December 16, 2008

We got our first look at this book and in addition to a large section on Lake George, it has two great historical photographs of Huletts.

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What the heck is a Stromatolite?

Do you know what a Stromatolite is? I didn’t until I read chapter 19 in Bill Bryson’s book “A Short History of Nearly Everything” – which I found highly interesting.

Well a Stromatolite is one of the first complex living organisms that arrived on the scene about 3.5 billion years ago; which is quite a long time ago considering the earth is only 4.5 billion years old.

The interesting thing is that I found a press release from the NY State Museum which tells us that the Adirondacks a few billion years ago were teaming with them. Some of the more complex ones have been found in present day Washington County.

“New York has the oldest animal fossils in the eastern United States – dating to a time that takes eight zeros to express. The (museum had an) exhibition … of these, a star-like trail discovered in Washington County. (NY has) fossils that are even older, stromatolites made by blue-green bacteria living more than a billion years ago in the seas of what are now the Adirondacks.”

Next time you’re out for a walk, you’ll know what to look for.

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Logging in the Adirondacks

This is a real good piece (about 7 minutes) about the history of logging in the Adirondacks. Logging and tourism are two industries that the Adirondack Park Agency is supposed to specifically encourage. It’s also presents the history of the formation of the Adirondack Park in the late 1800’s. It points out correctly, that private land has always been a big part of the Adirondack Park.

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Did the Lost Dauphin of France Really Stay in Huletts?

This is a great piece from Adirondack Magazine about rural legends of the Adirondacks. Was there really a Lake George Monster? What was the biggest buck ever shot here? Did Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother live in the Adirondacks? Does Presidential brother, Jeb Bush really own land in the Champlain Valley?

From Gerald Ford’s son to the Lost Dauphin of France, the legends are all spelled out here. It a great read. Perhaps you’ll learn of a legend you never knew existed.